Jamie Bryant

BRYANT CARING FOR MOTHERS HE TENDED AT BIRTH

Nurse Jamie Bryant has participated in thousands of baby deliveries at Samaritan Albany General Hospital.

CONTRIBUTOR: Maria Kirkpatrick

But that’s not necessarily what makes this nurse so special. Bryant happens to be the only male labor and delivery nurse within Samaritan’s system of five hospitals, and is said to be the most requested nurse in the department.

He said the biggest hurdle in his career was getting a foot in the door of labor and delivery.

“There were very few males working in the field 25 years ago,” he said. “Once I got my foot in the door, had someone to train me and proved myself, it took off from there. They say you have to pursue your passion, and I pursued my passion.”

Bryant was hired as a medical surgical nurse in 1992. On April 1, 1997, he moved into labor and delivery.

“I always wanted to work up here,” he said.

“It took them awhile to get the gumption to train a male nurse up here. Nursing is a career where if you show skill and compassion and caring, they don’t care if you’re male or female, green, blue, white, whatever.”

He loves what he does and enjoys the people he works with. His focus is on patient care.

“My goal for you is to send you home with a happy, healthy baby,” he said.

After high school, Bryant joined the military. After a few years, he realized the military wasn’t for him and decided he would rather go to nursing school.

“I always have been comfortable around kids and taking care of kids,” he said. “When

I got into nursing, I wanted to be a pediatric nurse, and then you realized you have to take care of sick children. I didn’t know if I could handle that emotionally. I always liked babies and always wanted to deliver babies, so this was the normal progression for me from graduation to here. I eased into this slowly.”

Bryant is from Klamath Falls. It was there he attended nursing school and met his future wife, Michel. She grew up in Lebanon and had a job waiting for her back home after graduation. Bryant applied for a position in Albany and was hired, so the couple moved back to Albany.

His family is his greatest achievement. He has been married for 30 years and his three children are college graduates. He credits his wife with doing a superb job of raising their children and being very supportive of his career.

“Being part of a family is my greatest accomplishment,” he said. “Nursing is what I do for a living, but my family is why I do it.”

His wife credits him for “catching” all three of their newborns. She said he has a gift – a sort of “superpower” – for helping women find “the power and strength they didn’t know they had to get through childbirth.” It is no surprise to her that several patients nominated him for a nursing award.

After 25 years in the department, he is helping deliver babies for the grownup babies he tended to years ago. It’s often that the couple goes out in public and runs into mothers and/or children Bryant has cared for in the delivery room.

Bryant said he will continue to work for as long as people respond well to him.

Michel is a nurse for Visiting Angels. On the side, Bryant and his wife run Bryant Family Farm, a 5-acre U-pick blueberry farm they purchased five years ago. It’s his hobby and gets him outside.

“It’s fun,” he said. “I get to buy tractors and lawnmowers and trucks and things.”